


Forgiveness, or, Seven Things Harry Potter Will Never Do for Petunia Dursley

by The Last Good Name (thelastgoodname)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 17:31:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5300384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastgoodname/pseuds/The%20Last%20Good%20Name
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry loves his aunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgiveness, or, Seven Things Harry Potter Will Never Do for Petunia Dursley

**Author's Note:**

> The seven corporal works of mercy are seven virtuous acts the medieval religious were required to do.

**bury the dead**

Three years after everything, Harry received a letter from Little Whinging: the council wrote to tell him Petunia was dead. Dudley and Vernon were not available to bury her, so Harry went to Surrey. The inquest held she died of natural causes. Harry took the body.

He had to rummage in Vernon and Petunia's drawers for information on a plot or family cemetery; there was nothing. Harry wondered about calling Aunt Marge, but she was Vernon's sister, not Petunia's. Harry bought a casket, lined in gray silk and inlaid with mahogany.

He buried his aunt in the Evans family plot.

**clothe the naked**

Harry chose the dress Petunia wore in her casket. Yellow was not a color Petunia wore, but Cedric wore yellow on the Quidditch pitch; Petunia would wear yellow for her funeral. He had to ask the shop assistant about the size. She cooed over him and gave him tea. The dress had a scoop neck and a floral pattern. Harry thought even if Petunia would have never worn it, she might have wanted to. Harry didn't want the funeral home to dress Petunia, but he wanted even less to do it himself. He asked Hermione for help; she said yes.

**give shelter to strangers**

The darkest sort of dark magic concerns death and even three years after everything, Harry couldn't leave Petunia with the funeral home. There was nothing for it: she had to stay with him. They brought her casket into his lounge, and left with concerned looks.

It was only one night, but he couldn't sleep with Petunia on the lounge floor. He got up for some water, and sat with her until dawn. He told her about Hogwarts, about Ron and Hermione, about his parents. He told her about Sirius and Peter. He told her about Remus, and his new life.

**minister to prisoners**

Harry read the eulogy, standing over Petunia's casket. He wore a new black Muggle suit. He never really knew her, but he spoke of her life, of her husband and son. He did not mention her sister, except to say that Petunia had outlived her family. He did not mention himself or his role in Petunia's family. Afterward, he felt he had not done justice to her life, but the people standing with him all said it had been a wonderful portrait of Petunia.

Later, Harry wondered if Petunia's life on Privet Drive had been as confining as his own.

**give drink to the thirsty**

Arranging the wake was more difficult than Harry imagined. He had no idea who Petunia's friends were, or even if she had friends. Certainly Petunia wouldn't have wanted a proper wake, but Seamus, in those last dark days of school, had taught Harry that some things went better with alcohol. He served Muggle drinks; they worked as well as wizarding ones.

He invited the neighborhood, and a surprising number of people came. No one asked where Vernon or Dudley were. The members of Petunia's congregation were the most supportive, and they shared stories Petunia told of her wonderful nephew Harry.

**feed the hungry**

Four years after everything, Harry visited Petunia's grave. He hadn't ever left flowers, and Dudley and Vernon were not available to leave them either, but there were daffodils, and yellow geum, and sunflowers and solfatare and leopard's bane and spurge and tickseed growing on Petunia's grave. There were no lilies, and Harry was glad that he hadn't brought any. He put down his bouquet of daisies, knelt, and pulled the few weeds growing on Petunia's grave.

As he worked, something tight in Harry's chest opened, and he smiled. Harry sat down, and began to tell his aunt of his day.

**visit the sick**

When Petunia's dearest friend Helen phoned, Harry came to hospital and spoke with the doctors and collected her medications and helped her to the car. He took her home and brought over milk, and the papers, and when she had to see her doctor two weeks later, he took her.

Harry sat in Helen's lounge on Monday evening and Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning and drank milky tea and ate stale biscuits, and when Helen discovered her stomach cancer would kill her, Harry was there. He was there as she faded and grew weak. He was there when she died.


End file.
